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Walking Land's End to John o'Groats with Mark Moxon

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Kerrie Patton

Subject: LEJOG planning
Posted: 13 Feb 2022 9:56 pm


Hi Mark, Im writing to you from the Sunshine
Coast, Queensland Australia. Today 13/2/22 I stumbled across your site, as we are looking at doing the LEJOG, hopefully in 2023.
I must say I am very impressed with the site.
We have completed many long distance walks, C2C, Offa's Dyke, TMB twice, Switzerland & a few in Australia & NZ but now want to challenge ourselves to a longer one, while we are still able.
I'm 71& hubby 76, so we could be a bit slower than many others.
A couple of questions for you
1. How can we get from Heathrow to Lands End?
2. What did you take in your pack, did you take a tent? etc
3. Is it possible to add in the 3 peaks to climb

Thanks in Advance for replying, Kerrie

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Mark Moxon

Subject: LEJOG questions
Posted: 14 Feb 2022 12:18 pm


Hi Kerrie.

Hi there! Let's see if I can answer your questions.

1. How can we get from Heathrow to Lands End?

The traditional way is to head into London from Heathrow, then take the 5-hour train from London Paddington to Penzance, and either stay there overnight and then take a local bus to Land's End in the morning, or go all the way to Land's End and stay in the hotel there, ready to set off in the morning.

Or you could look into flying from London to Penzance, which is a lot quicker, but almost certainly more expensive (though it's worth looking at the prices as they do vary quite a lot, though bear in mind that there are a lot of London airports, and some of them are an awfully long way from Heathrow).

It is a long way to Land's End, so expect to spend at least a day doing the transit.

2. What did you take in your pack, did you take a tent? etc

I started with a tent, but ditched it after two weeks as I injured my ankle and had to lose some weight, so after that I stayed in pubs and B&Bs rather than camping. I was much happier without the extra baggage.

See here for a complete list of what I took:

https://www.landsendjohnogroats.info/walking_tips/what_to_take.html

3. Is it possible to add in the 3 peaks to climb

Definitely - the only "rule" of walking from Land's End to John o'Groats is to start at one end and finish at the other. You can go via anywhere you like, and some people do slot in the three peaks. You end up going via Wales, then the Lake District and then western Scotland, so although it's a longer route, it isn't a massive detour from the more direct route.

For me, though, I thought it was difficult enough walking across an entire country without adding in extra stuff like this, so I'm glad I didn't make my life harder, but everyone is different!

Anyway, food for thought, and feel free to ask any other questions you might have. I'm happy to help.

All the best,

Mark

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Kerrie Patton

Subject: Thank You
Posted: 17 Feb 2022 4:26 am


Hi Mark, thank you for you prompt response to my questions.

Yes the weight of the pack is critical, the max that I can carry is 10kg, which I did on the TMB.
And honestly, that was more than enough.

I think we were having ourselves on, in regard to the '3 Peaks', but dreaming we were. When we did Offa's Dyke in 2019, Snowden was on the agenda, but we got washed out with torrential rain & only completed 1/2 of the walk, sadly.

We are also considering the Pennine Way.

As it is such a long haul-flight, we want to make the most of the journey.

Thanks again, keep up the great work with your writing.
Kerrie

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Mark Moxon

Subject: Lightweight packs
Posted: 17 Feb 2022 4:00 pm


Hi Kerrie.

Yeah, I'm also a big fan of light backpacks. I'm not getting any younger... 😀

Good luck with the planning! It's all part of the fun.

Mark

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